Department of Nasty Conflicts

War Memorial Opera House

Vintage Postcard

Collection of Lisa Hirsch

You'd think that the scheduling folks at San Francisco Symphony and San Francisco Opera would talk to each other about important events at each organization. They work across the street from each other, and many people, some of them big donors to both organizations, like to attend major events at both.

But somehow, we've got the following conflict:

• Friday, September 22, 2023: San Francisco Symphony's open night 
• Friday, September 22, 2023: San Francisco Opera's first performance of The (R)evolution of Steven Jobs, of which the company is a co-commissioner

I can't imagine that it's possible to fix this. SFS has Simon Keenlyside coming in for the opening gala; SFO can't move the opening of Steve Jobs to Saturday, September 23, because there's a Trovatore performance that night. Pulling it in to Thursday? Well, not if the dress rehearsal is on Wednesday, and not without seriously inconveniencing everyone who has a ticket to the Friday performance.